Neglected
by Onigiri
Summary: Mission in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Violence, death, etc.
1. One

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Weiss characters, any of the original characters that I stick in here are mine.  
  
Warnings: I really don't know where this is going as of yet. I have some idea though, so right now, I'm going to say… there's going to be violence, death, angst, bad language, all that good dark stuff I usually throw into it.  
  
Sometimes he had to wonder what kept him going. What was it that motivated him to keep on doing what he did each night? What was it that made him take those missions? What was it that made him… him? He was sitting against the wall with his back pressed up against it, his shoulders hunched slightly because his arms were upraised, forearms, one resting on each knee, a book held in his hands. His fingers were curled lightly against the yellowing pages, growing more worn looking with each day, each month that passed. How many months had he been like this now? Two years worth.  
  
Turning his head to the side, he could faintly see his reflection in the window, staring at the lights just past his own image. Narrowing his eyes, the lights would blur together, like little glowing discs in the distance. Stars. Tipping his chin upward just a little bit, enough so that he could peer up at a straight angle and see the sky, the dark sky that was clouded with pollution gathered from the city. No stars up there. No. His eyes staying narrowed to slits, while his gaze panned out over the city. His stars were down here with him, and it was only when he was half blind, that he could see them.  
  
A soft knock on his door makes him relax his eyes, almond shaped eyes with a purple gem in each. Hardening in their feline confines, sliding toward the light that comes through the dark hallway, shining onto him in a straight beam. The ray filtering through cutting his figure in half, straight down the middle, illuminating the fine porcelain that made up his mask, his skin. Blinking, letting the light catch his eyes, making them seem like marbles with the rays filtering through them. His head lifted some more and he turned on the bed, his legs causing the sheets beneath him to drag along, moved only by his weight. A dead weight.  
  
" Nani ka?" Even those two words seem forced from him. Verbally, he didn't say much, no, he was articulate only in his head.  
  
"Aya-kun, Youji and Ken are heading out and I'm going over to a friend's to study. Did you want to go with them? They'll wait if you want to go along." Baby blue eyes that were powered by the light, fine blonde hair that framed a still young face. Many people would describe him as angelic, Ran merely described him as young. Energetic. Untouched by the darkness from inside. Everyone had darkness within them.  
  
"Iie." Turning away from the door now to leave his back to the light, lifting his book off his lap where it'd been resting, his right hand moving to smooth out the corner he'd bent to mark where he'd paused to think. Pretense of being occupied. But he was, by his thoughts, he usually fell victim to them.  
  
"Sou ka. Ok Aya-kun." The door closed with a soft click, leaving him in darkness again, momentarily it was dark anyway. The light from the window returned to him, his eyes become accustomed to the dimness once more, and the words on the pages before him once again stood out clearly.  
  
"Aa." Saying it to no one in particular, maybe just as a final confirmation of his decision, he lifted the book to rest it against his left knee, holding it with his left hand while his right raked through those fire red strands, pulling the bangs back away from his forehead. He did this often, holding his hair back away from his face with his fingers entwined in the strands, twisting them now and then when he read something he needed to think about, or when he thought something he should stop thinking about.  
  
Right now, he was doing it because it was familiar.  
  
Ran. That was his real name. The one that he used only in his head when he was talking to himself. When he'd forget where he was and who he was now. Aya. A small quirk of his lips hinted at a wry smile. It really was, obviously, a girl's name. At times he wondered if the others noticed. Other times, he wondered if they even cared.  
  
His fingers curled and the hair stretched a little between his fingers where he was pulling on them. He favored literature that criticized society, and pointed out its faults. He favored literature that gave him things to think about while he lay there unable to sleep at night. So many things to absorb.  
  
Closing his eyes, his head tipped back against the wall with a dull thump, and his shoulders relaxed with a sigh. Another knock at his door, this time, no polite wait followed as the knob turned and the door was thrown open. A long shadow was cast over his bed, stretched out to even linger on the window like a fleeting phantom, his eyes following this back to the door, the light framing the figure standing in it. Like a halo of light, he thought.  
  
" Aya." The man in the doorway had blonde hair, but even from here, Ran could see the dark roots. He was holding the door open as if it'd slam shut if he'd let go. He owned a lanky body and a long indigo trench, white crosses seared onto each arm with white leather, the buckles in the center where the two lines crossed shining, catching and reflecting the light from behind.  
  
"Aa?" Turning to the door again, twisting the sheet beneath him and giving himself a faint sensation of sheet burn, setting the book down, bending the page again with a finger, the book coming to its rest on the window sill. He stood from the bed, though he had no need to stand, his feet touching the cold floor, and his hands went to adjust the waistband of the sweatpants.  
  
"Change of plans. Manx is here. Gear up." He was still standing there, waiting, watching him. Ran would smile if he ever allowed himself to freely do so. Humorous really, how this was being done. Youji, the bleach blonde, always had a way of being dramatic. 'Gear up'. It sounded like something out of a bad weekend morning cartoon. 'Gear up' and lock and load. He'd figure out some corny theme song later, in his head, to satisfy the part of him that was still a child. He did that a lot these days. Satisfied that part of him. His face remained slack outside his mind, indifferent. Inside, he was still bemusing the child. Let him be happy, Ran thought. He's dying.  
  
"Aa." He gave a small nod of his head, turning his head to the side, toward his closet and walked that way. The door closed again behind him, the darkness bathing him once more. Pulling the closet door open, he reached for the trench coat.  
  
  
  
Downstairs, he had to walk all the way to the basement where the other three team members were gathered. This is where they met up to learn about their missions. This is where he took his missions; this is where he sold his soul each time, for a bit of cash. Cash that was passed to him under the table.  
  
The screen came to life with a flicker of light passing over each of their four faces, and the other face. One that Ran only saw on nights like this. Manx, the executioner's secretary.  
  
" This." Manx was pointing to the screen with a laser, moving the little red circle with several flicks of her wrist. Showing them a large portion of a bird's view shot of a city.  
  
"Is Chinatown in Los Angeles." Stopping the red light on a smaller block as the video continued and zoomed in.  
  
" This is the location of a large organized crime ring. Smuggling children and selling them. For anything."  
  
Ran thought he saw Ken wince at that. The brunette to the far left of himself, the one standing there in his black t-shirt, the orange sweater around his hips, and hip hugging jeans. Ken liked children, Ran reminded himself. He taught them to play soccer.  
  
" I suggest you all go. If anyone disagrees with the mission, speak up now."  
  
Silence. Ran's eyes flickered once over the others before returning to look at Manx.  
  
" Good. Then go pack. You have two hours before your flight. I will meet you at the airport."  
  
She was gone then, walking, her heels clicking to go back upstairs. Ran turned his head to look after her, and noticed that Youji was watching as well, only, their eyes were trailing different areas.  
  
"Well. Looks like we've got to find those suitcases." Youji's arms stretching over his head as he stretched, yawning, hands on the small of his back as he started for the stairs, Omi, the boy that had knocked earlier, following behind him. Ken was looking at the screen still, where some of the pictures of the children were flashing at them. Children that were stripped of their shrunken clothing and murdered. Left to be displayed for the world to see and be appalled by. Disturbing. So disturbing it made Ran want to write some poetry about it.  
  
He turned away and started upstairs, saying nothing and outwardly seeming as distant and cold as they thought he was. Distant, yes. Cold, pretty soon he would be.  
  
(( Continued.)) 


	2. Two

There was a knot in the back of his neck that felt almost painful, and no matter how many times he dragged his fingers against the tense muscles, no matter how many times he shook his head or rotated it, there was nothing that he could do to make it go away. He'd slept wrong in the plane. It was amazing that he'd fallen asleep at all in that cramped space, stuck between a man who thought with his lower head, and a man who insisted that the isle was evil, which seemed to justify the fact that he kept leaning back toward the red head stuck in the middle. The woman in front of him happened to like tipping her chair back, but it just so happened that every time she did so, Ran found himself smooshed against his own seat back. Of course, even if he held still then, he'd have no break from the continuous torture on that eleven-hour flight. A child sat behind him, and made a game out of kicking Ran's chair until the redhead turned around to glare at him.  
  
Now, though, Ran was free of those things, the knot in his neck only a memento of what horrors he went through to get here. Here, the lobby of the Los Angeles air port where all the international flights were filtering in. This particular building, he mused, was called the 'Bradley International'. Bradley. The first name of the leader of Schwarz, a man that Ran found to be very awkward. But then, he found the whole team to be that way.  
  
Manx had met them back at the airport, the Narita airport in Japan where she had told them what they were to do. They were going to take different planes, at different hours, and when they got there, they would figure out on their own how to get to Chinatown and how to find a place to stay once there. Ran, just happened to be the one to fly last. They were each given a total amount of five hundred U.S. dollars. That was almost fifty thousand yen each. That, was supposed to last them a week. They had a single week to establish themselves in Chinatown. The particular neighborhood they were supposed to enter, was a tight knit community, in which the crime ring was supposedly hidden among the civilians. So they were going to enter as civilians, be drawn into the community, and from there, find the crime ring and stop the crimes. Their first large undercover mission ever. Youji, Ran thought would be used to this sort of thing, Omi, maybe, but he and Ken seemed completely lost.  
  
Well, Ran hoped, looking up at the blinking numbers and letters, flight names and times on the huge board, he hoped that everyone else had some more of a clue than he had. Because right now, he had none. His lips pursing into a thin line, his usual outward expression, he glanced around, hoping to see a sign that would point out the taxis, the rental cars, something, anything to give him a direction.  
  
Two hours later, his direction came when he was shown out of the airport by a security guard who noticed that he'd been standing there fore quite some time, looking 'obviously lost'. He'd guided Ran to the taxi cabs, and when Ran had told him in bad English where he was headed, the security guard gladly told the driver where to take him. It had been a long ride, and the traffic was hell, Ran noted. He tried to sleep in the back seat on the way there, but every time his head nodded forward, the knot would tighten itself and the pain would ebb him until he woke. Now, his violet eyes were watching the city just outside the window, narrowing them slightly to let the lights blur. Aa, he thought. No mater where he went, his stars wouldn't be returning to him. He'd traded them. For city life. Again, in this new pretense of a clean beginning, the dark past hidden just beneath the surface. Undercover.  
  
When Ran arrived in Chinatown, the first thing he noticed was that the buildings became less modernistic and more well, familiar. They lost some of those strange designs with the large English words on them, and became more plain, something that he could compare to the apartments and other such buildings back in Japan. Now, after paying the taxi driver for his services, having to count and recount those ugly green bills, he folds his wallet and slides it back into his back pocket, turning his head to let his gaze filter down the street. Taking it all in slowly, it looks like a disserted town. He could read some of the signs though, English mixed with kanji. He sighed. It really did feel like he was starting all over again. He'd need to find a place to stay, he'd need to find a job, and then, in one week, when they were supposed to be stabilized, he'd have to find the 'red dragon' restaurant and meet up with the rest of his team, as if on 'accident'.  
  
Nothing on the street. At this hour, he didn't blame people for not being out and about. It wasn't exactly early evening. Letting his head turn slowly again, reading the signs one by one. Book store, salon, market, gift shop, furniture shop, other things that had exotic names. Shouldering his black bag over his shoulder, and then picking up the suitcase's handle at his side, he starts down the street, continuing to read the signs that he passed by. Letting his eyes lift to look on ahead of himself, he noticed the large building at the very end of the street, decorated with large statues of red dragons, two double doors done in an old fashion, red with large golden handles that pulled open outwards. Next door to the building, sharing that end of the cul-de-sac was a motel. Turning his head over a shoulder and looking back up the street, Ran could see flashing lights in the distance at the other end. So Chinatown had its own dance clubs too. At least, that's what he was assuming they were.  
  
Turning his head back around, to look toward the motel, he frowned. Motels and hotels sucked the life out of people. Well, the money out of their pockets anyway. Regardless, he went toward it. It would be the only shelter that he would be offered tonight. Sighing, taking his path slowly toward the run down building and its blinking sign, he let his eyes slide back to the side a bit, mind running over the possibility that Youji would be in that night club.  
  
And he was. Out of all of them, Youji was perhaps the more talented in languages. After all, pick up lines came in all sorts of different ones, right? Now, here he was at the Black Cobra dance club and inn, though, he mused, the inn could've probably been compared more to a whorehouse. A modern business with a touch of old tradition. He'd gotten off the plane hours earlier, being the first of the assassins to be sent off, and landed in the airport, found himself a taxi and landed into Chinatown, all before the sun went down. He'd spent the rest of those waning hours trying to find a place to stay, anyplace but the motel. That would be the first place everyone would head for, and it wouldn't do to meet up with his team already.  
  
At sundown he'd seen this place, the elaborate building with the old fashioned tiled roof, black tiles, the building itself white in color, the doors, double doors with large black cobras carved into it, bedazzled with golden scales. Inside, the walls were white, but with the lights on they were showered with a excess of colors, every spotlight that hit the floor was in the shape of a cobra, slithering across the floor to the beat of the loud music. The women that served drinks in here, wore high collared oriental dresses, all made of shiny material with skirts that stopped way above the knees, and not too far below the waistline. There were two openings, two other sets of double doors that lead to the inn that was connected to the nightclub, and in there, it was two stories. The upper level and bottom level decorated with railings of black iron, each door was black, it seemed the whole building was black, white and gold. On the second floor however, at the very end of the long hallways was a pair of black doors that lead to red doors and lace that covered those red doors. Beyond that, Youji had yet to find out.  
  
He had the room at the very end of the hallway, upstairs, on the right side of the building. His own room inside was decorated with a four post bed that had laces hanging from it, satin sheets, and a walk in closet where he'd hung up most the clothing he'd brought with him. How he could ever afford this place, would be beyond his teammates. It was his charm, he'd tell them. His charm and his love of ladies that lead him to trade favors for favors. One of the women he'd flirted with upon stepping onto the property, happened to be an employee here. And lucky for him, she'd been high up in the 'ranks' as she said. She knew the owner personally. The girl, Useki, had left Youji in the main lobby, letting him examine the large Cobra statue sitting there in the middle of the floor, made of black marble. When she'd returned, she told him that she'd spoken with the owner, and he'd be allowed to stay for free, as long as he worked for his stay.  
  
An offer that he couldn't refuse. Though now he had to wonder what job he'd agreed to do. Maah, he always did have a hard time saying no to a pretty lady. Now, he was sitting at the bar, the empty bar that stayed empty most of the night, until someone ordered a drink and the ladies came shuffling through the dancing bodies to get to the bottles behind the counter and pour drinks. Youji had a drink of his own, a glass of sake, and he was sipping on it. He'd have to wait to meet the owner. But it wouldn't be until later in the evening. Youji lifted the glass, taking a small sip while his eyes closed to enjoy the rich, familiar flavor of the alcohol. Saa… he should've never let Ken watch that survivor movie about the plane crashing into the mountains and people having to eat people to stay alive. Oops, well. Maybe he'd done okay regardless of how green he looked.  
  
Ken was laying down on a bed. The orange sweater that'd been tied around his waist was hung over the chair that stood nearby, caramel in color to complete the desk and chair set occupying the space in the corner. To his right was the window, the shades drawn up those some of the lights from outside were still filtering inside. His leather jacket was hanging up on a hook near the door, closed now, with light pushing through the little cracks on all fours sides of the frame. One arm was slung over his forehead, the other across his chest. His suitcase and gym bag laying side by side on the floor at the foot of the bed. Silence, and then footsteps, the door opening, showing light behind it, a woman stepping into the room. Long black hair trailing to mid back, little red braids mixed in with those raven strands, a t-shirt covering her upper body, and black jeans encasing her lower, presenting a casual air about herself.  
  
She stopped by the edge of the bed and looked down, sighing before she prodded at Ken with her left knee, lifting the leg a little to slide it against the mattress.  
  
"Oi. Hidaka-san."  
  
His eyes lifted, closed, and then opened again, startled awake, sitting up, too fast. Blinking his eyes and trying to clear them fast, mind racing to remember where he was and what he was doing here. Oh, that's right. He'd sat next to this woman on the plane. She'd been finishing up a project in Tokyo, and was on her way home to Chinatown. When turbulence hit the plane, he'd freaked out (thanks to that movie) and she'd suffered him grabbing onto her hand. After they'd gotten off the plane, Ken had explained he was a college student trying to find a job in the United States, and she'd offered to take him home with her.  
  
It must've had something to do with the fact that he looked like a lost, scared, air-sick puppy. Okay, maybe not scared but air sick and lost. when the realization hit him that he was sitting in her bed, he flushed, the red line starting right across the bridge of his nose.  
  
"I got you some water." She held the glass out toward him, lifting a fine trimmed brow.  
  
" D-domo." Ken lifted his right hand to take the glass, putting it against his lips as he sipped, and kept his mouth there, fogging the glass as he mumbled.  
  
" Jiu-san." That's right. Her name was Dekishi Jiu. She'd already mentioned to him that, that wasn't her original name though. She'd changed it. So that people she didn't want to find her, wouldn't. Ken looked at her now, standing over him, taking another sip of the water before handing the glass back.  
  
"Aa. Get some rest. We'll go talk to some of my friends about getting you a job later tomorrow." Yawning and stretching, she nudged him again with her knee until he'd slid over against the wall, blinking at her. She gave him a wary look when he blushed again, and climbed into bed next to him, turning her back to him as she drew up a separate blanket and …well, looked like she was trying to sleep. Ken's flush reached his hairline and he found himself following the curve of her back with his eyes. Forcing himself to avert his gaze out the window, he lifted his right hand to pinch his nose. If he were Youji, he'd … well, he wouldn't have just been sitting here. If he were Ran, she'd be on the floor. And if he were Omi. Well, Omi wouldn't have landed himself in this situation. At least Ken hopped not.  
  
Omi, was bent over in the dimness of a room, typing away on his laptop, holding that ontop of his knees as he sat there with them drawn up against him, his back pressed to the wall. He'd gone ahead and researched. Kritiker after all, was an organized that stretched across the world. Meaning that they would need plenty of places for their assassins to hide out if it were needed. Plenty of places where equipment could be stored. This hide out in a run down apartment complex one block away from the Red Dragon restaurant was good enough for his purposed. He'd found so far, bugging equipment, ear pieces, and a sleeping bag. The doors locked and the windows bolted shut if need be. from here, he could contact Manx if the need came up. As for the others? Well, he'd just have to trust them for now. Sighing, finishing what his hands were spelling out with little clacks of keys, Omi pushed the screen down and made sure it closed before setting it down on the floor next to his sleeping bag, going about zipping himself up. Now, he'd sleep, and in the morning after he'd had some time to adjust to his jet lag, he'd start researching. The sooner they were done here, the sooner they could go home.  
  
(( Continued. )) 


End file.
